Crescendo Untold
by Tahla
Summary: Roxas’ complete story. With his Awakening in Twilight Town Roxas starts on a journey that begins with confusion and only gets worse from there. He sets out on a tragic mission of his own – Does a heart ever really disappear? Akuroku.


**Prologue: Axel **

Axel was cocky, certainly, but it was not his pure confidence in his own character that gave him the impression that he was unlike the other Nobodies. He was, simply, unlike the others; both those who'd been before him and the few that came after. Firstly, he had – with a vivid recollection – all his memory from his other self while his comrades often had only quick flashes of their past.

Axel also had no extra letters to his name that his other had. He thought that must've meant something.

And, at the beginning, he knew by these two reasons alone that he was special. Nothing more nor less.

Later he would find that there were indeed, quite a few other things that made him unlike the rest. There were a very few, very big things that made him different but he didn't know what they were until he'd met Roxas and even then he had no idea just how much they'd change his life.

* * *

Xemnas summoned Axel to the meeting room on a lazy day for the rest of the Organization members. Larxene was locked in her room reading books about things she could never feel, Demyx was wandering the World that Never Was and tuning is Sitar, and the rest were doing other such trivial things to pass the time between one mission to the next. Axel sat in his chair, fifth highest from the ground, and looked up to the tall chair of his Superior. He crossed both his arms and legs, put on a disgruntled look – never bother Axel when he's sleeping – and waited for the orders. Another day, another mission, and another hope (probably lost) for collecting hearts.

Xemnas started simply by saying that there had been an outbreak of Nobodies in Twilight Town and Axel's eyes narrowed. Any 'activity' in Twilight Town could only mean one thing; someone had Awoken.

Axel thought about the recent Heartless activity and of talk about a chosen Keyblade wielder and wondered if this had to do with anything but he kept his mouth shut. He knew his place, retrieve what has recently Awoke, and bring him over to the organization; a job which had once belonged to Xigbar but had been handed down to Axel with the uproar of many of the senior members. Axel complied and, after a few moments to brief on what was to be done (all simply principle – Axel knew exactly what he needed to do) he smirked and faded into the air.

As he appeared in Twilight Town the air was thick and humid and the sky a changing blue. He was at the hill that overlooked the crossing of the train's tracks. All Nobodies appeared in a different place in town but they always managed to find their way here, just as the night was about to fall on the city. Whoever the new member was, they better turn out to be a bit more amiable than Larxene had proven to be.

Then, over the edge of the hill came a boy, confused and searching, with a strange weapon dragging on the ground behind him. He had a mess of spiky blond hair, tired blue eyes and a shell shocked angular face. Axel gave a crooked grin and thought to himself, _A kid, eh? This'll be fun, _and let the boy continue up the path until he reached the top, looked up, and spotted Axel leaning against the railing wearing a smirk and crossing his arms.

The boy frowned, opened his mouth slowly and then said, "Who the hell are you?"

There were two things Axel didn't like. The first was Larxene's romance novels. The second was when people didn't know his name. He arched an eyebrow, just the right – he'd only ever been about to arch the right, and tapped his temple impatiently. Another feisty one, just like Larxene had been. "The name's Axel, got it memorized?"

He gave the boy a few minutes and, when he didn't get an answer he asked, "And I bet you don't know who the hell _you _are."

The boy glowered for a moment, keeping his weapon in the dark of his shadow and glaring at the ground with a furious intensity. "What's going on?" he asked roughly. "All of a sudden I was here and I have no idea what's…"

Axel pushed himself off the railing and laughed. The boy couldn't help trying; it wasn't his fault, after all. His other had been careless, had been taken to the darkness and had died. Now they had a pretty little blond shell of a boy to help on missions. The first day was hard on everyone.

Except for Axel's, of course. Axel had made his first day as a Nobody fantastic – he couldn't remember anyone else who had.

He made his way toward the newcomer and waited. The sun began to dip below the horizon and the sky shifted from a pale blue to a hesitantly emerging orange and, in the new light there was an odd shift in the air around the boy and shapes like letters began a tentative dance around his head. Axel began to make out the characters – O, R, S, A – as they danced in the sky like.

Suddenly they stopped, just above the boys head and with a blinding flash. A jagged line ripped through the sky – criss-cross – and cut between the letters. There, in sheering blue, sat a word – a _name_.

_Roxas_.

The name had a terrible sort of familiarity to Axel but he shrugged it off and looked toward the boy and said, "Memorize those letters, Roxas, because it'll be the only name you go by besides a number. Forgetting your other name and those memories would be best for what you're here to do…"

"What _am_ I here to do?" Roxas said angrily. "I don't _have_ another name."

Axel stopped. Usually, Organization members could at least remember their other name, if only that. But this boy seemed not to remember…. "Do you remember _anything?"_ he asked suddenly, although it didn't really seem possible. He didn't know any member that had _no_ recollection of their past. Roxas shook his head and, almost as an after thought, lifted his weapon from the shadows to the air in front of him.

"What is this? When I woke up it was in my hand but I don't know what it does."

Axel should be getting paid for this sort of thing. It wasn't fair that anyone else recruiting had gotten easy candidates – like Axel himself – as opposed to such puzzling and startling Nobodies. In the space between them Roxas held up a dark, sword like weapon that gleamed in the amber light.

Axel didn't bother to hide that he was dumbstruck. He glared at the sword and then to Roxas, whose blue eyes were clouded with uncertainty, and then intoned, quite lamely, "That's a Keyblade."

It was really more to himself than to Roxas – Roxas would have no idea what a Keyblade was to begin with. But people couldn't just _wield Keyblades_.

Not since the war.

He whistled into the humid air. "The Superior is gunna be damned interested in you, kid."

* * *

Axel found that it was easier to think when he let his mind drift with the changing sky so he took Roxas' to the top of the Twilight tower to give the Explanation. He'd given it once before a year ago when he found Larxene, angry and lost, wandering the underbelly labyrinth of subway lines beneath the ground of Twilight Town.

Larxene had told him about her fragmented memories. How she'd once been fierce and loyal in a trim, black suit and now she was here an unknown place with a fire in her eyes that Axel knew her own memories of anger were fabricating.

But she couldn't remember he other name – Axel thought it was easier the less you could remember.

Twilight Town stretched before them, far under their swinging legs and as Axel explained, Roxas ate away at a sea-salt popsicle – the first thing Axel had eaten as a Nobody – and watched the sky burst with color. It became clearer to Axel that Roxas was a blank slate. Not void of personality, to be sure, but it was as if he'd never lived a day before this one. He's simply opened his eyes for the first time as twilight had hit the town.

Axel could remember his former life with the same clarity that he could remember his own now. The only difference was that it was a cloudy sort of clarity in which he knew he was no longer the same person as he was then. That everything he'd live and breathed at the time – every emotion that had shot through his body – had died when his Other had.

Axel's Other had been named Alex – a fierce, strong willed soldier in a war stricken world; a world Axel had yet to find in his travels (he assumed it had been swallowed by the darkness when his other had). Despite turning to a heartless, Alex had held on for quite a long time before finally succumbing to the void. It was the main reason that Axel could remember so much of his life before. The small array of red spikes that Alex had had slid into long, menacing points of ferociously red hair. The fiery temper shifted to a control of the element. A newly born Nobody stood in the middle of Twilight Town – a shell with no emotions but a vivid memory of the one's he once had. There was an empty place, somewhere inside of him where there had once been a heart – just like with all Nobodies – but it was gone now and he set out on a personal vendetta, very like his other self would have done, to find it again.

Axel was special; there was nothing else to it. Nothing more nor less.

And his being special would make Roxas special too.


End file.
